1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to networking systems, and more particularly, to bandwidth management and allocation.
2. Related Art
Storage area networks (“SANs”) are commonly used in systems where plural memory storage devices are made available to various computing systems (also referred to as “host systems”). Data stored in a SAN is typically moved between the plural host systems and the plural memory storage devices.
Host systems often communicate with storage systems via a controller/adapter known as a host bus adapter (“HBA”), using a local bus standard, such as the Peripheral Component Interconnect (“PCI,” “PCI-X”, or “PCI-Express,” all used interchangeably throughout the specification) bus interface. The PCI, PCI-X and PCI-Express standards are all incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
HBAs are often shared by multiple applications with varying bandwidth needs. Conventional HBAs do not provide a minimum guaranteed bandwidth to individual applications, i.e. HBA's do not support Quality of Service (QOS) for each application. This can result in one application consuming a majority of available bandwidth, while preventing other applications from receiving any available bandwidth.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and associated method for a HBA to allocate and manage bandwidth.